Athletics Event

In their latest effort on the court, the JV2 girls took on the visiting team from Keystone Academy in what proved to be their closest and most competitive contest so far. The two teams were very evenly matched and stayed within lead-changing striking distance of each other through all of the first 3 quarters. At that point, the WAB team seemed to have the flow of the game under control despite only holding a 2-point advantage when suddenly a 3-point range buzzer beater from Keystone which ended Quarter 3 gave the visitors the lead for good. With the wind taken out of their sails a little bit and a bit of fatigue setting in, the Tigers were unable to score in the final quarter as the very deep bench of Keystone made a few more baskets to end the match.

With the winter vacation ahead, the Tigers will have time to rest and recuperate before coming back to take on cross-town rivals BCIS in their next match on January 10th.

The team's second match of the season saw them match up against the Wolves from BWYA, one of the teams against whom they'll match up again in the end-of-season ISAC tournament. At the opening tip-off, WAB started strong by getting out to an early lead and looked very solid on the defensive end early on. As the game moved on, BWYA began to break down the offensive motion of the WAB girls and after a series of fast breaks and strong rebounding took the lead before the end of the first half and never looked back. Again, the JV2 squad continued to fight hard and made some competent adjustments to the BWYA pressure at different times, but in the end the Wolves' forceful style of play combined with the Tigers' shooting woes were too much to overcome.

In their first game of the season, the JV2 Girls matched up against the top group of players from the MS Girls pool of basketball players. The skills and aggressive style of the MS team proved too much for the young and relatively inexperienced JV2 group, but despite this the girls refused to give up and fought hard right to the final buzzer.

In a tense, come from behind victory, the WAB Tigers overcame an early 10-point deficit to defeat the favored International School of Bangkok (ISBK) team. The annual Great Wall Shootout at ISB Beijing sports six teams from around Asia in a three day tournament. Schools from Shanghai, Hong Kong, Korea, and Bangkok met in a round robin style tournament. For the girls tournament, the ISBK team rolled through the round robin, defeating every school by double digits, including beating WAB 37-23. Despite a close disappointing loss to ISB Beijing in the round robin, WAB made it through to the final with a tie-breaker, and set up a rematch with the undefeated ISBK Panthers. The game was slow to start, as nerves were evident from both teams. ISBK broke the ice with a 6-point run and ending the first quarter with a 10-2 lead. WAB would not go away and kept it close in the second quarter with ISBK heading into half-time with a 20-10 lead. WAB came out of the half firing on all cylinders, opening the half with a 9-0 run, which ended with 3-point shot by senior Captain Jessica Tsao. ISBK responded with a short run, and we entered the fourth quarter at 27-22 ISBK. In the fourth, ISBK opened with a field goal to make it 29-22, but WAB turned up the defensive pressure, with steals and rebounds leading to fast break points that continued to chip away at the lead. With a minute to go, Dani Monfils scored the go ahead basket to make it 30-29. ISBK had a chance to take the lead, but made 1-2 form the free throw line to tie the game. Then, with seconds remaining, Jessica “Shoes” Xu was fouled driving to the basket leading to a shots at the free throw line. Xu made 1 of 2, giving WAB a lead they would not relinquish. Without a timeout, and with only a few seconds to go, a desperation half-court shot clanged off the back board, sending WAB to victory with a large uproar from the WAB friendly fans. The girls had an improbable victory that will hopefully continue to propel the team as they head into APAC season, with WAB hosting the upcoming Tri-Cities tournament against ISB, SAS Pudong, and AIS Guangzhou.